Title

Author

Date of Award

Spring 1952

Degree Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Hamm, Victor M.

Second Advisor

Maloney, Michael

Third Advisor

Archer, Jerone W.

Abstract

Swift's thought and his art present difficult problems worth the solving which even his most able critics have not fully answered. One of these is the question of his rationalism. There is nothing he wrote which does not at least imply the exaltation of reason, the rejection of both passion and imagination. Yet Swift's greatness as an artist lies in the intense passion which informs his diatribes against the lower appetites and in the imaginative power of his defense of reason. Perhaps an answer to the paradox may be found in seeking to understand the relationship of Swift's thought to that of his age--the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment.